Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Transcript Assembly Program

Courthouse News Service has California Court Administrators Eye Tech Projects for Budget Windfall which notes:
At its business meeting Friday, the administrative agency for the state’s courts touted a pilot project created by the appellate courts to move trial records and electronic transcripts from the trial courts to the appellate level. The council expects the move will streamline the appeals process, saving courts and attorneys loads of time and money and ensuring people’s cases are considered in full.
Compiling an appellate record can be tremendously time-consuming, as all documents related to a case must be photocopied and assembled along with a court reporter’s transcript and physically sent to the appellate court. Courts estimated they were spending 10 hours on each file per year, according to the Fifth Appellate District.
A new system called the Transcript Assembly Program allows trial court clerks to electronically forward documents to both the appellate court and the attorneys working on the case.
The project was initially launched in 2017 with a $25 million grant which funded about 50 projects comprising the Innovation Grants Program. It began with the nine courts comprising the Fifth Appellate District in Fresno. By the end of 2019, it was being used in 30 courts.
(Hat tip to Leslie Ellen Shear)